It’s quite easy to nerd out over mechanical keyboards (I have the blog posts to prove it). There is a type of satisfaction that comes with typing on a mechanical keyboard that is rare in our touch-screen, trackpad, chicklet key world. The thud, the click, the clack — the physical work it takes to type — of a mechanical keyboard is something that hooked me once I experienced it.
My first mechanical keyboard was the Macintosh version of the Das. It’s splendid, but giant. After testing a half-dozen other mechanical keyboards over the course of a few months, I’ve been using a Filco Majestouch-2 Ninja for quite a while now and I think it’s fantastic. The Filco Ninja is tenkeyless, well built, and uses the Blue switches.
I did not order a CODE Keyboard when it went on sale because the keyboard uses Clear switches which I knew I didn’t want.
My cousin, however, did order one, and over the holiday he brought it out to Kansas City so I could use it for a few weeks and then he left it with me to use for a while because he’s cool like that.
I’ve been typing on this keyboard since December 21st and my consensus is this: The CODE is an awesome keyboard, but I don’t like the feel of the Clear switches.
Right off the bat, anyone familiar with a keyboard using the popular Blue switches, will notice that the Clears are quieter. They are more muted and produce a “thud” rather than a click. The keyboard is quieter but not necessarily quiet. If you were in a small office, sitting next to someone, the keyboard is still going to make a bit of a thud and clack as the key caps themselves bottom out when you’re typing, but there isn’t the neighborhood-waking click-clack that accompanies the Blue switches.
The CODE Keyboard has been sold out for a few months primarily because of the difficulty of getting Clear switches. On the keyboard’s website they’ve posted a few updates (one last September and another last November) stating that new keyboards are in production and will include a variety of switches to chose from: Green, Brown, and Blue.
The Green switches are a new switch. They’re pretty much identical in sound and feel to the Blue switches in that they are tactile and clicky, but the Green’s have an actuation force of 80g and a bottom-out force of 105g (the Blue switches are 50g and 65g respectively). Thus, the Greens are going to offer noticeably more resistance than just about any keyboard you’ve ever used.
If/when the CODE keyboard becomes available with Blue switches, I’ll buy it in a heartbeat. Of all the different types of mechanical keyboards I’ve tried, I still remain a fan of the sound, feel, and tactile feedback of the Blue Switches. The CODE keyboard is of equal build quality as my Filco Ninja, but the LED backlighting of the CODE is just fantastic and I love it. It’s unfortunate WASD Keyboards don’t let you build a custom keyboard with LED backlighting as an option.